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Friday, February 24, 2017

Scrap-A-Palooza! : Quilts From Orphan Blocks

I started my quest to use some of my orphan blocks in January. At the time, I had no idea that I would end up making four entire quilts (using a total of 267 orphaned blocks and leftover components.) I would love to tell you that I used up all of my blocks but I still have plenty left to play with in the future!

And here is the fourth quilt I made. Another medallion style but it uses a whole bunch of tiny leftover components and small blocks (109 pieces to be exact).

Even though this quilt is the smallest at about 40" square, it was probably the most challenging.

Many of the blocks in my orphan storage were put there for a reason - they didn't make the cut for a quilt. So putting all of these rejected bits into a quilt made it really hard to keep it flat.

Also, with all those tiny bits, it kept feeling like it was getting a bit chaotic.

So I tried to keep a narrow color selection and I used inner borders in fabrics used in some of the blocks (gray and red) to unify the quilt.

It is not the prettiest quilt in the show but when I think that it came from bits from 8 previous projects, I am impressed that it came together as well as it did!

Btw - In January, I shared my plan to finish 12 older UFOs this year. On that list was to make a quilt from my orphan blocks. How lucky was I to see that its number (#8) was drawn for February!

This UFO challenge is being hosted by American Patchwork. So far I have marked two UFOs off my list. So far it seems to be working :)

The quilt on the left is a quilt I made previously in 2014 using some orphan blocks. I know some of you have been getting creative with your orphan blocks so I would love for you to share them!

Feel free to link up a blog post, Instagram photo or Flickr image of a quilt or project you made using orphan blocks. It doesn't have to be a recent post - I just want to share the pretty things that can be made using these abandoned blocks.

14 comments:

I have an orphan block quilt in progress right now, but I haven't posted about it yet. I'll be sharing it in March. It is in the Bee My Neighbor quilt along. I didn't like the first block, so I remade it, and put the orphan into another project.

That is pretty amazing that you were able to make 4 quilts out of all of your orphans! I like them all for different reasons, but I think my favorite is the row quilt. I haven't tried putting words in a quilt yet, but maybe this is the year! What are your plans for these quilts, Cyndy?

I've really enjoyed this series but, whoa, you have a lot of orphan blocks! I have a handful...I'm thinking of using them to create grocery bags. I do think that you will have me looking at orphan blocks in a new light in the future!

I'm amazed at what you do with your orphan blocks. Your quilts are so cohesive even though the parts were all intended for (or rejected by) other projects. You've inspired me to dig around and see what I have that could be repurposed. I don't have many orphans, but I know I have a few that were destined for an upcycle art studio and never made it there. I like lcscottage's idea of grocery bags. Hmmm...

I've enjoyed your orphan block quilts so much that I was thinking today that maybe I need to start making some test blocks to create pieces for one. But then I realized it would probably just end up taking over and becoming a sampler quilt instead. ;) Thanks for the inspiration.

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